jezernik_constructing identities on marbles and terracotta

The Encyclopédie of 1765, with its entry onmuseums, was the first Western source toclaim that a collection could honor a nation.

By the end of the 18th century, the idea that muse-ums could demonstrate what a state was worth, aswell as make an example of the civic virtues of itselites, became widely accepted in educated circles.Museums developed into instruments of modern-ization and marks of modernity as they becamesome of the most important features to distinguishthe West from the rest of the world (see Parnauvel1855:46). In time, this gave rise to museums in“peripheral Europe” as a part of the process ofmodernization or, as it was called at the time,“Europeanization,” of the continent.

During the second half of the 19th century,museums began to proliferate in Europe.The aware-ness that museums were important fixtures of awell-provided state then spread to other parts of theworld and became a means of signaling to the Westthat one was a reliable political partner, imbuedwith respect for, and adherence to, western symbolsand values (Duncan 1994:279). However, it was notuntil the 1870s that a worldwide boom in museumcreation began to fill in the blank spaces on the cul-tural map (Prösler 1996:24–25).

The Glory that was GreeceIn the 19th century, Western writers used the

meta-narrative of the Fall to describe ancient Greeksas “the wisest and the most accomplished people inthe world” whose fate made them masters of theknown world and who yet gave way to the rising

Roman Empire to become and remain for centuries“a mere province of Turkey” (Elizabeth 1837:96–98).Their example was used to argue for the developmentof civilization. In this manner, Bishop Berkeley’spoem stating that civilization had always rolled on ina great wave from east to west, was glossed by Aubreyde Vere who quoted the old Latin adage that a ser-pent is powerless until he has eaten a serpent. Thisadage, he said, could be applied to nations:

Every nation which has vindicated to itself anytrue greatness has absorbed, either politically,or morally and intellectually, some nation thathad preceded it. The Greek intellect absorbedand assimilated all that was most valuable inthe political and philosophic lore of nations fur-ther to the east, except Palestine. Rome in turnabsorbed Greece; and Roman law with Teutonicmanners (both fused together by the vital heatof Christianity), built up the civilisation ofMediæval Europe. The European commonwealth thus inherited all that antiquity and theeast had done and thought:—America inherits us.[De Vere 1850, vol. 1:194–195]

Attention given to the extant remains of Greekand Roman art developed in the first half of the 15thcentury when Ciriaco de’ Pizzecolli, known as Cyriacof Ancona (1391–1452), traveled extensively inGreece and Asia Minor, and related his encounterswith the decaying remains of classical antiquity(Bodnar 2003:ix–xxii). Within the next century, thisenthusiasm spread to Germany, France, andBritain. During the 17th century, the interest inGreece, as Henry Peacham put it, “where sometimethere were more Statues standing than men living”

3

MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 3–20, ISSN 0892-8339, online ISSN 1548-1379. © 2007 by the AmericanAnthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproducearticle content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/mua.2007.30.1.3.

Constructing Identities on Marbles and Terracotta:Representations of Classical Heritagein Greece and Turkey

Bozidar Jezernik

(1634:107), led to systematic traveling in search ofthe discovery of Greek buildings and works of art.Since it was thought reasonable that travelersshould “rescue” all they could find of classicalremains from the “degenerate” Greeks and “bar-barous” Turks who were not considered adequatekeepers of a great heritage, they were motivated notonly by their desire to get to know the country butalso by the hope of proving their good moral educa-tion by transplanting “old Greece into England”(Peacham 1634:107). Many statues were taken fromall over Greece (Randolph 1687:20; Thévenot1687:105), and occasionally more harm than goodwas done. George Wheler, for instance, described a“trunk” of the statue of Apollo that he had seen in atemple on the island of Delos. The trunk was leftbehind by an Englishman who made an effort “tocarry it away, but finding it impossible, he broke offits head, arms, and feet, and carried them with him”(Wheler 1682:56).

Eventually, it became a well-established prac-tice that Western travelers “carried off the marbleswhenever it was possible” (Wood 1753:2). As JohnMorritt, who visited Athens in 1795, described in hisletters, “Some we steal, some we buy, and our courtis much adorned with them” (Morritt 1914:179).During the Age of Enlightenment, things Greekcame into fashion as structuring tools for taste andcultural identities. Philosophers like Jean JacquesRousseau pictured themselves as Greeks or Romansdraped in the togas of Cicero and Lucretius to re-enact the orations of the ancients (Lowenthal1985:374). This intense interest in ancient Greekculture arose from a genuine feeling of kinship, andEuropean linguists had postulated that the ancientGreeks and later Europeans had both sprung froman original Indo-European linguistic stock—andpresumably race—that was quite distinct from thelinguistic and racial makeup of the Semitic peoplesof the Middle East (Silberman 1989:5).

Before long, educated western Europeans hadcome to regard classical Greece as the foundationfrom which all European civilization had sprung,and saw themselves as its cultural heirs. “We are allGreeks,” Percy Bysshe Shelley declared. “Our laws,our literature, our religion, our arts, have their rootin Greece” (Shelley 1878, vol. 2:384). AlthoughGreece reemerged as an independent state, it wasbelieved that “its great glory and power have for everpassed away” (Elizabeth 1837:98). With classicism

attracting ever more devotees, people in the Westincreasingly came to feel that the modern Greekswere not fit to guard their classical heritage, and itwas supposed that true heirs of the Hellenist legacylived not in Greece, but “in all the lands of the West”(Cuthbertson 1885:218). They themselves, not themodern Greeks, were its true heirs not only becausethey cared and knew more about the classical her-itage, but because they made it universal—a legacyinspiring philosophers and statesmen, poets andarchitects.

The belief in the universality of the classicalGreek heritage was translated into the wholesaleacquisition of classical antiquities for private col-lections, which in turn formed the basis of suchmajor European museums as the Louvre and theBritish Museum. With the rise of great Europeanmuseum collections, expeditions were arranged toaugment the holdings; no stone was left unturned.In the 19th century, appropriation of the physicalremains of ancient Greece buttressed the westernEuropean claim to that cultural heritage, whichwas used to establish a relation between universaland national history. As a symbol of “the sacred tiethat exists between Europe and Greece” (Cochrane1837, vol. 2:277), it provided powerful support forthe notion that (western) Europe was categoricallysuperior to all other continents, and this in turnjustified European imperialism or colonialism asmissions civilisatrices.

The whole process was not devoid of paradox,however. Many Western travelers who discoveredGreece and its classical heritage had learned clas-sical Greek at school. Inspired by Homer and hislarger-than-life characters, they were dumb-founded by the contemporary Greeks who could“not well understand the Ancient Greek” (Wheler1682:355; see also Hill 1709:175; Tournefort1718, vol. 1:77; Pococke 1745, vol. 2:10), let alonefollow the verses of the Poet (Garston 1842, vol.2:311–312). While struggling to speak or under-stand modern Greek, they noticed that it “differsonly from the ancient in a system of barbarisms”(About 1855:9). According to Edmond About, thekey to the system was simply “to distort properlythe words which we learned at college” (About1855:10). Thus, the modern Greeks became bar-barians, literally barbaraphonoi (Iliad 2.867), orthose whose language sounds like bar bar to anancient Greek (Friedman 1981:29).

4 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 30 NUMBER 1

Rich Europeans coming to visit “the cradle ofWestern civilization” characteristically drew melan-cholic comparisons between “the glory that wasGreece” and its modern “degeneration.” Louis Forbin,for instance, described Athens as a town “modestlystationed at the foot of the Acropolis, and silent asthe slave who feels ashamed of his misery andchains” (Forbin 1820:3). They shared this view withthe Ottoman authorities in Greece. Whilst ThomasHughes and his companions were examining theAcropolis, the disdar aga (castellan) asked them totell him about the genie who had erected thesegrand buildings. Upon their assuring him that theywere all the work of human beings, he assumed theymust have been giants, but when they made aneffort to convince him that these giants were theancestors of the Greeks, he burst into laughter andpointed at the inhabitants of the modern city(Hughes 1820:260).

Roman Temples and Modern MuseumsTaste for things Greek has led to mass depre-

dations of the country’s classical riches ever sinceRoman times, with pottery, sculpture, and architec-ture falling prey to foreign visitors. The Romanauthorities carried off large numbers of statues, andPausanias recorded that Emperor Nero alonerobbed the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi of “fivehundred brazen images, which were partly statuesof gods, and partly of men” (Pausanias 1824, vol.3:104). In the time of Trajan, it was commonly saidthat Rome contained as many marble statues ashuman beings. However, after Constantine theGreat founded his new Christian Rome in the Eastin 324, Greek works of art retraced their steps east-ward, to the Greek city of Constantinople. The Cityof Caesars remained the greatest repository ofancient art until 1204 when its fall into crusaders’hands signaled the turn of the tide. In the followingcenturies, artifacts of ancient Greece filled up thegalleries of western Europe with their most valu-able acquisitions.

Never was the rate of loss so high, however, asin the beginning of the 19th century when westerncultural imperialism used purchase, bribery, andinfluence to strip Greece of huge quantities of itsremaining treasures to adorn European collectionsand museums with the finest relics of ancient art:the Parthenon frieze in London, the Aphadianpediments in Munich, the Winged Victory of Sam

Thrace in Paris. As suggested by Mary Beard andJohn Henderson:

Roman temples, in fact, had a lot in commonwith modern museums, and shared some oftheir paradoxes: they displayed for generaladmiration the outstanding pieces of Greekgenius; at the same time, their institutional andreligious status, the divine authority that theyrepresented, served to legitimate the plunderand the conquest that had acquired those mas-terpieces. Appropriation had been the name ofthe game for longer that we might imagine, andis inescapably at the heart of the discourse ofculture in the West. [1994:9, 11]

Until 1687, the ravages of time had not yet under-mined the Acropolis, and the Parthenon still stoodrelatively unharmed, as did many other classicalmonuments. Their destruction was reserved for “acivilized polite age” and people renowned for theirlove of the arts. On September 26, 1687, DogeMorosini and Count Königsmark invaded Athens.During the siege of the Acropolis “these modernGoths” directed their artillery at the Parthenon anddestroyed forever “the most glorious architecturaltriumph of men” (Curtis 1903:371). Once the townhad fallen, Morosini conceived the idea of embel-lishing Venice with the spoils of Athens, andendeavored to remove a group of figures includingPoseidon and the horses of Athena’s chariot fromthe pediment of the Parthenon. The ropes withwhich the workers were lowering them broke andthe figures were dashed to pieces (see Jezernik2004:219).

Throughout Ottoman rule of Athens, antiquitieshad been hard to obtain, particularly as the deathsentence could be passed on any Turk or Greekfound to have allowed a relic to be removed withoutthe sultan’s permission. When, in 1759, GovernorTzistarakis, an Athenian Turk, blew up a column inthe Temple of Olympian Zeus, which he wished toincorporate into the mosque that he was buildingin Monastiriki Square, he was heavily fined and dis-missed from his post (Mackenzie 1992:28). Thepermission to remove a fallen piece of sculpture ormake excavations was never granted except to anambassador in high favor, like Marie de ChoiseulGouffier or, after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in1798, to Lord Elgin. Consequently, in “no Europeancountry—let us repeat it for the sake of truth—havethe remains of antiquity been so much respected as

CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES ON MARBLE AND TERRACOTTA 5

in Turkey” (Slade 1837, vol. 2:306). Or, as LadyCraven complained in a letter to her future husband:

The Temple of Minerva, in the citadel of Athens,was used by the Turks as a magazine for powder,which blowing up has flung down such a quan-tity of beautiful sculpture that I should be veryhappy to have permission to pick up the brokenpieces on the ground—but, alas, Sir, I cannot evenhave a little finger or a toe. [Craven 1789:256]

Only occasionally, those travelers who were “verywell with the Turks here, and particularly with thegovernor of the town” (Morritt 1914:180), could havehoped for successful negotiations with the com-manding officer of the castle that put them in pos-session of a number of broken parts from theAcropolis (see Morritt 1914:175).

Nature left the Acropolis in almost perfect con-dition for centuries until it was vandalized under thepretext of love of art in the full light of modern times.In 1787, the French ambassador to the OttomanPorte, de Choiseul-Gouffier, commissioned LouisFrançois Sébastien Fauvel to procure antiquities.The ambassador’s instructions were clear enough:“Take all you can. Do not neglect any opportunity topillage anything that is pillageable in Athens and itsterritory. Spare neither the dead nor the living” (St.Clair 1998:63). Fauvel followed his patron’s advice,enthusiastically acquiring what he could, where hecould, first for his patron and then for himself. Withsuch great success he soon filled the courtyard of hishouse in Athens with antiquities in quantities “suf-ficient to fill a museum” (Hughes 1820:270).

In 1788, he stole an inscribed marble from thepaved floor of a monastery for, he said, he couldnot obtain it in any other way; when he wishedto remove three pieces of verd-antique columnsthat he found forgotten in a corner of theAcropolis of Athens, he bribed a Turkish soldierto throw them from the walls of the citadel onto a dung-heap below. Then he set his sights ona Parthenon metope that a storm had broughtdown; it had been broken into three pieces bythe fall, which in the event was fortunate, forotherwise it would have been impossible toinduce the soldier, as he did, to slide the piecesalong the walls above the theatre of Dionysosand drop them down to him below. When heunearthed a slab of the Parthenon frieze,however, it was intact and, the Turks being par-ticularly amenable to bribery, he obtainedpermission to remove it. But it proved too heavy

and half the depth had to be sawn off the back,in which process the heads of the women sculp-tured on it in low relief were broken; they werenot lost, however, for they accompanied the prizewhen he smuggled it down to the Piraeus forshipment. His booty was considerable: in 1787,he dispatched to France for the Count sixteencases of marbles and forty of plaster casts of themost important sculptures of Athens; the nextyear, over twenty more sculptured fragmentstook the same road. [Bracken 1975:17–18]

Many Westerners justified the looting of arttreasures by holding the “Turks” responsible formutilating and destroying the Acropolis and otherclassical monuments through ignorance, icono-clasm, or barbarism (Craven 1789:220; Quin 1835,vol. 2:194; Giffard 1837:162; Slade 1837, vol. 2:303;De Vere 1850, vol. 1:99; Burt 1878:32). Allegedly,they were guilty of breaking the stones of theAcropolis to build a new mosque or fountain and torepair their houses and the walls of the fortress(Chandler 1776:47; Craven 1789:221, 257), of pound-ing fragments of the Parthenon marble “that wouldadorn a virtuoso’s cabinet” to make lime (Craven1789:220; Giffard 1837:162), and of shooting theheads of statues out of their cannons for lack ofbetter ammunition (De Vere 1850, vol. 1:99–100).Allthis, even though it was a well-known fact that“upon the whole, the Christians have provedunkinder guardians of the ruins of Athens than theMoslems” (Arnold 1868, vol. 1:87).

Even if the objects bought and stolen from“degenerate” Greeks and “barbarian” Turks wouldhave been better off left lying where they were (seeConstantine 1984:10), the Westerners only rarelyasked the question posed by Adolphus Slade:

what has kept the monuments of Athens, (not tomention those of the plain of Argos, ofConstantinople, &c.) above ground during fourcenturies of their rule? Did Minerva bind theirhands? Did the shade of Theseus guard hisfane?—that edifice almost as perfect now as itwas two thousand years ago. Did Jove suspenda thunderbolt before his temple? [Slade 1837,vol. 2:303]

The Elgin MarblesIn 1802, Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin,

British ambassador to the Ottoman Porte and artcollector, procured a firman (letter order) from the


sultan, then sovereign of Greece, that his menshould be allowed to measure and draw the build-ings and sculptures, to put up ladders and scaffold-ing, to make plaster casts, to remove obstructionsfrom the monuments, and to conduct excavations,taking away anything of interest that the excava-tions yielded (St. Clair 1998:337–341).Although thefirman conferred no authority to remove sculpturesfrom the buildings or to damage them in any way,Lord Elgin’s agents took the parts of the frieze thathad survived the explosion, the statues on the ped-iments, and all the metopes that remained on thesouth side of the temple; these are now known as“The Elgin Marbles.”

The loss of the Caryatides, carried off by LordElgin, caused more distress in Athens than theremoval of the Parthenon frieze, as they werebelieved “by many Turks and Greeks” to be livingbeings, held by an enchanter’s spell. The strengthof the people’s feeling on this subject can be gaugedby a story that circulated among the citizens andvisitors of Athens: one of the Caryatides removed byLord Elgin wept dolefully all night long, and its crieswere answered by loud sobbing from its sisters inthe Acropolis. Only the following morning were thesacred breasts of the mourners restored to theirformer peace, the rising sun drying the tears ontheir stony faces (Hughes 1820:259–261; Bramsen1820, vol. 2:84; Giffard 1837:162–163; De Vere 1850vol. 1:91–92; Crowe 1853:110; Bremer 1863, vol. 1:9).

In 1814, as compensation for his deeds, ThomasBruce presented the city of Athens with a town clockwith musical chimes that was erected in the openspace near the marketplace (Hughes 1820:267;Trant 1830:267;Walsh 1836,vol.1:126;Friedrichsthal1838:109; Byron 1926:163). Lord Elgin’s gift wasregarded by many as adding insult to injury, “as ifto recall the despoiler of the Parthenon every hourto remembrance” (Hughes 1820:267). For others,however, the first public clock in Greece seemed a“valuable gift” and worthy indemnity for the peopleof Athens (Walsh 1836, vol. 1:126; see also St. Clair1998:206).

In 1816, Lord Elgin’s collection was purchasedby the British nation and placed in the BritishMuseum. The damage done to the Parthenon by thatoperation was a much vexed question. Lord Elgin’sachievement was censured by many as “plunder”(Röser 1836:91; Zachariá 1840:141; Bremer 1863,vol. 1:9), earning him scoffing nicknames such as

“stone-monger,”“marble-dealer,”“marble-stealer”and“the last, the worst despoiler” of the Greek temples(Michaelis 1882:142). Lord Byron’s name is especiallylinked with the Acropolis. Allegedly, it was he whowrote on the brick support built to replace the figureremoved by Lord Elgin, the famous line, Quod nonfecerunt Gothi fecerunt Scoti (‘What the Goths spared,the Scots have destroyed’) (Temple 1836, vol. 1:81).

Lord Elgin himself, and many other Britishauthors, contested this view, suggesting that thedamage done to the building had been greatly exag-gerated, and describing the act not as one of van-dalism, but as one of conservation of these preciousremains of ancient sculpture, which were safer in theBritish Museum and could be seen by more peoplethan in Athens (see Bruce 1810:4–6; Bramsen 1820,vol. 2:79–82; Fuller 1829:540–541; Walsh 1836, vol.1:125; Giffard 1837:162;Wordsworth 1839:117–118;Bremer 1863, vol. 1:9; Young 1876:33; Farrer1882:37; Michaelis 1882:136; Lunn 1896:86–87;Russell Barrington 1912:52–54; James 1921:138).

In the ensuing debate, interest in antiquitiesand expertise served as compelling arguments tojustify British custody of the Greek legacies. Thus,the British captain and traveler Edmund Spencerrepudiated as “anti-British” any doubt that theBritish Museum was a better place for the work byPhidias and his pupils than its birthplace (Spencer1851, vol. 2:266–267).

Notwithstanding the power of such an argu-ment, some British authors expressed their opinionthat the Parthenon sculptures should “be restoredto their proper and natural home” when suitable cir-cumstance arose (Cochrane 1837, vol. 2:289–290).This remained the prevailing view among Britishauthors into the second half of the 19th century, withthe proviso that, as antiquarian Thomas Henry Dyerput it, “Athens should be placed under a civilisedgovernment, and the ravages of violence and decay,in its beautiful monuments, be not merely arrested,but repaired” (Lunn 1896:86–87). At the close of the19th century, British authors developed the argu-ment that “the priceless treasures” in the BritishMuseum were “a legacy left to the whole civilisedworld, and not to one particular people” (Johnson1885:70). Hence, all overtures to the British gov-ernment to restore the Elgin Marbles were met withan unfavorable response. The Greeks’ hope that theday would come when Britain would restore thesesculptures to their place was deemed “absurd,” as


the “people who would bombard their antiquities ina revolution” were “not fit custodians of them in theintervals of domestic quiet” (Mahaffy 1876:86; seeWaterfield 2004:348–350).

At the beginning of the 20th century, however,even those British authors who were convinced thatLord Elgin had done well to seize the Greek monu-ments and preserve them from destruction, agreedthat “now that their right preservation would be asmuch secured on the Parthenon as in England,surely England should rise to a generous magna-nimity, and return the originals to their right home,and substitute casts for them in our Museum”(Russell Barrington 1912:52–53).This, however, didnot materialize.

The removal of the Elgin Marbles from theAcropolis to London by Thomas Bruce is one of thebest-known cases but it is far from being unique.Most Western lovers of art were eager collectors. If,in 1749, there were still 12 statues on the west ped-iment of the Parthenon, by 1800, only four of themremained (Waterfield 2004:335–336).

Rescuing “Ancestral Remains”Historical consciousness took a distinctive form

under conditions of European modernity.1 In theMiddle Ages and Renaissance, lovers of art thoughtnothing of dismantling ancient buildings to makenew ones. Even in the 17th century, leading archi-tects used the Colosseum as a marble quarry fortheir own works. It was only when changes set intrain by the French and Industrial revolutionscaused a radical break in the flow of history that thepast became a refuge from an all-too-new and disil-lusioning present (Lowenthal 1985:xxi). In the 19thcentury,Western states were greatly concerned withthe possible existence of underground remains of oldbuildings and displaceable works of art. People onlybegan systematically digging up ancient statueswhen a growing sense of progress and modernityfacilitated the cult of antiquity and an increasedinterest in the past. In most Western countries, reg-ulations were introduced to control excavationsmade for such remains or objects even on privateland. With modernization, this attitude spreadacross the globe. The first attempts at rescuing“ancestral remains” in Greece stemmed from a phil-hellenism that itself was largely imported. In 1811,the Philomousos Etaireia was established with theobject of disseminating education amongst all

classes, acquiring the modern languages, and inves-tigating the history and antiquities of Greece. In fur-therance of the latter objects, remnants of ancientsculpture were no longer allowed to be taken out ofthe country or even to be removed from a districton any pretext whatever (Emerson and Humprey1826, vol. 1:282–283; Tobin 1855:246; Mahaffy1876:45–46).

To gain support for the liberation of Greece,philhellenes promoted contemporary Greeks as “thedescendant of those glorious beings whom the imag-ination almost refuses to figure to itself as belong-ing to our kind” (Shelley 1878, vol. 2:384).The nameHellenes replaced regional names that were in usebefore the War of Independence, and Hellenic per-sonal names become customary (see Young 1876:49).Thus, Demetrius Zographós, who had formerly beenin Lord Byron’s service and had distinguished him-self as a captain in the War of Independence, awak-ened to the ancient glories of his country: the wallsof his house were studded with mutilated inscrip-tions, fragments of statues, friezes and capitals, andhe had his four children christened Themistocles,Alcibiades, Pericles, and Aspasia (Fuller 1829:36).Growing nationalism focused on preserving the cul-tural heritage and motivated the first attempts atrescuing ancient artifacts. Among the first consti-tutional acts of the new state, and among the rolesand duties of the new governor of Greece, was thestipulation that, “he shall not permit the selling orexporting of antiquities outside the country.” Inthe mid-1820s, the books of the library of thePhilomousos Etaireia and the few antiques thatformed the nucleus of the museum were placed “forsecurity” in the Acropolis (Emerson and Humprey1826, vol. 1:282). In 1829, the first governor ofGreece, Ioánnis Kapodístrias, founded the country’sfirst archaeological museum on the island of Aigina,the capital of Greece at that time—a role that itfilled until 1834. Its first director submitted a list ofmeasures to the government to ensure that “theantiquities of this country to be sacredly guarded”(Cochrane 1837, vol. 2:277).

The excavations and searches began almostimmediately after the Ottomans left (Morris 1842,vol. 1:80). Provisional local governors all over thecountry began excavating in the areas under theircharge, sending the findings to the NationalMuseum and reporting on their discoveries. In 1829,the provisional governor of Elis (Peloponnese) made


an effort to educate the people of the area, explain-ing, “Museum is the word for the place where antiq-uities are kept and guarded. Antiquities is the wordfor old works of art which were made by our Greekancestors and which were kept safe or under theground” (Avgouli 1996:251–252).

Soon after the establishment of the Kingdom ofGreece in 1834, a law was passed that prohibited theremoval of antiquities from the country. The lawdeclared as a general principle that, “all antiquitiesfound in Greece, as the legacy of Hellenic forefa-thers, are to be considered the common national pos-session of all Hellenes” (Tobin 1855:246; Boetticher1883:70; Brown 1905:65, 217). In the same year, theNational Archaeological Museum was founded inAthens, and the collection of its predecessor onthe island of Aigina was moved there (Avgouli1996:246). The care of the antiquities of Athens wasconferred to the conservator of antiquities for main-land Greece, besides whom there were two others,one for the Peloponnese and the other for theislands.Their duty was to search for antiquities andpreserve them in safe places until a regular nationalmuseum could be constructed. Numerous laborerswere employed in 1834 to clear away rubbish andrepair the monuments of the Acropolis (Temple1836, vol. 1:78; Cochrane 1837, vol. 2:285–286; vonKlenze 1838:391; Cumming 1839, vol. 2:115–116;Mure 1842, vol. 2:70).

In 1838, the Greek scholar Iakovos Rizos-Neroulos opened the first conference of the GreekArchaeological Society on the ancient Acropolis ofAthens, stating that “these stones, thanks toPhidias, Praxiteles, Agoracritus and Myron, aremore precious than diamonds or agates: it is to thesestones that we owe our political renaissance”(Tsigakou 1981:11). Western lovers of the arts keptan anxious eye on the attempts of the Greek gov-ernment to reconstruct the Acropolis (see Cumming1839, vol. 2:115–116; Giffard 1837:152; Tischendorf1846, vol. 2:310). More than a few of them believedthat, “if that be seriously undertaken, all the muse-ums of Europe, which have any scrap of that greatwork, should now take more pride in giving it back,than could have been felt in the original acquisition”(Giffard 1837:152). However, lack of funds proved agreat obstacle to the undertaking, and the Greekgovernment contented itself for a time with pullingdown a mosque and other buildings built on theAcropolis by the occupying Ottoman authorities.

Its action was received with sympathy and tolera-tion by the Westerners who found it better to “haveruins, than such Turkish erections on the rock of theAcropolis” (Bremer 1863, vol. 1:9).

The ideology of travel implied that travelersenriched their homes with souvenirs. As the Britishtraveler to Athens, Walter Colton exclaimed, visi-tors, “who should have appeared here only as admir-ing pilgrims, have expressed their veneration indetaching fragments, and transporting them to theirambitious cabinets” (1836:259). In the first half ofthe 19th century, the popularity of Athens as atourist center grew. With this increase, vandalismgrew too, as many travelers thought it necessary tocarry off a piece of marble as a relic: if the head orleg of a statue, so much the better. If concealmentwas advisable, they might allay their desires by clip-ping off a nose, or an ear (Hughes 1820:266; Laurent1821:109–110; Trant 1830:264, 268; von Klenze1836:300; Hervé 1837, vol. 1:131; Slade 1837, vol.2:306–307; De Vere 1850, vol. 1:85; Janke 1874:90;Young 1876:37; Braun-Wiesbaden 1878, vol. 1:192).Soon, a guard of soldiers had to be established to“defend the Acropolis against the devouring handsof those collecting tourists who travel with ahammer in their pocket, and who lament the moneythey had spent if they did not bring away the noseof a statue to ornament their country-house” (About1855:177).

The Greek authorities prohibited the trade inobjects of art, but as the government did not buythem, brokers carried on a clandestine trade, con-cealing their goods under their cloaks. If some pieceof marble was too large or too heavy to be carriedhidden, it was broken into pieces. Dealers retailed“a statue as they would a sheep for sale” (About1855:178–179). As it turned out, the laws intendedfor protection became “the strongest stimulant todestruction or concealment.” To make mattersworse, the diversion of classical Greeks’ antiquitiesfrom the land did not necessarily bring about “atransfer to at least a European museum” (Wyse1865:92). During the 19th and 20th centuries, artlovers could buy genuine Greek antiquities inspecialized shops in Athens, and they did, if theycould negotiate an acceptable price (Willis 1853:213;Wyse 1865:91–92; Farrer 1882:71–72; Byron 1926:183). Although the prices were frequently higherthan in London or Paris, Greek antiquities be-came a magnet for many Western travelers who


nevertheless complained of “ludicrously highprices,” and lamented that Athens was “a placewhere all things are for sale: the city itself, if it couldfind a purchaser.” Allegedly, even a certain profes-sor of archaeology at the University of Athens whoowned a private collection of antiquities sometimesshowed it proudly to his Western visitors and letthem know that every object in his collection had itsprice (Farrer 1882:72). If the whole of Greece hadbeen “pretty well cleared of anything of value,” even-tually every hamlet got a “village archaeologist” whobought up anything that was discovered in theneighborhood to resell it at a higher price (Farrer1882:157). As the law forbade sale out of the coun-try or even the removal of any antiquities from a dis-trict whatsoever, numerous little museums wereestablished. They contained “much both of beautyand of interest,” but before long there were too manyof them, so that works of art were often relegated tosome “dark out-houses, only lighted through thedoor” (Mahaffy 1876:46), located “in spots unvisitedby civilised man” (Farrer 1882:62). Western travel-ers found many reasons for disappointments duringtheir visits to Greek museums. The relics of antiq-uity, “the greatest wealth of the country,” storedthere were neither perfect nor complete. The frag-ments were not sorted or arranged, many of themutilated statues were lying prostrate and in noway restored (Wyse 1865:91; Mahaffy 1876:50;Farrer 1882:62–63).

The next landmark in protecting the ancientheritage was set by the excavations at Olympia(1875–1876), which established the principle that allthe finds should remain in Greece, though Germanyretained the right to make copies and casts (exceptin the case of obvious duplicates, when the less per-fect specimen could be taken away). Additionally, allfinds were to be published concurrently in Greek andGerman (Boetticher 1883:64–65). All portable dis-coveries were promptly removed “to two little shedsclose by, styled grandiloquently the Museums.” Buta further difficulty arose

in consequence of the absurd obstinacy of the“deme” of Olympia in asserting its municipalrights, and declining to let anything be removedfrom the spot; so that all these marbles andbronzes, instead of being studied at Berlin oreven at Athens, waste their sweetness on liter-ally desert air, and can only be known to the gen-eral public through the medium of casts and

photographs: since a collection of ten cottages,containing one spare room between them, whichis all the place can boast, can hardly be consid-ered accommodation sufficient for any greatnumber of archæologists. [Farrer 1882:191–192]

In fact, it was not Athens or Greece alone thatcontributed to the enrichment of its visitors’ identity:this destiny was shared by other parts of the Balkansas well. Edward Browne, for instance, in his travelreport informs readers that in the old Roman townsthrough which he passed during his travels inHungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Thessaly,“the people, upon notice given, would bring whatCoyns they had, called them Heathen-mony. In theCountries of Servia and Bosna; the Armenians andJews make Collections, and send them to Ragusi[present day-Dubrovnik]; from whence the greatestpart is carried into Italy” (1673:21).

According to Alberto Fortis, who visitedDalmatia on several occasions during the 1770s, theso-called Morlaks, who inhabited the village ofPodgraje, used to pay some attention to stones thatthey came across when ploughing or digging,

but ever since they were forced to drag somesepulchral columns, without any reward, to thesea-side, they have vowed perpetual enmityagainst all inscriptions, and the moment theydiscover them, they either break, or bury themunder ground, deeper than they were before:and in justice, they ought not to be accused ofbarbarism on this account; for there is an easyway of making them become, not only preserversof, but searchers for ancient monuments; andthat is, only to give them hopes of some pre-mium for their discoveries, and labour. [Fortis1774, vol. 1:35]

Fortis adds that he himself found, by accident, in acertain Morlak house, a sepulchral monument andbought it “for very little money” which, with someother such acquisitions, he brought with him to Italy(Fortis 1774, vol. 1:35).

It is impossible to list all the instances of suchexchange made over the centuries.At the beginningof the 20th century, the archaeologist David Hogarthdescribed how he and his company during their stayin the Satalian Gulf bought, from the local inhabi-tants, ancient coins and other antiquities in marbleand terracotta. In the event, they spent “some exhil-arating hours in unashamed quest of forbiddenthings.” He reported:


It was easy enough now to justify our looting,for, else, those marbles had gone long ago intothe limekiln. But I doubt if any one of usthought a moment about justification, as wewere loading the whale-boat once and againwith spoils of Sidé. We were filled full of the lustof loot, possessing ourselves of treasure ready-made, reaping that we had not sown, tasting ajoy which recks as little of justification as anyon earth. It is the joy which has made piratesand filibusters and mercenary adventurers ofall sorts and conditions of men, and kept themso till death. It recruited Greeks to fight forPersia, and Germans to fight for Rome,Norsemen to fight for Constantinople, andanyone and everyone to fight in GrandCompanies, and Knightly Orders, and Janissaryand Mameluke battalions; and it will recruittheir like to the end of time. It has no rivalsamong motives of human action, but Love andFear, and it has so often conquered both, thatwho will say, the greatest of these three is notthe Lust of Loot? [1910:121–122]

As portrayed by another British archaeologist, whohimself bought some antiquities during his Balkanjourneys, parting from their possessions was notalways easy for the local people who were oftenforced to make such transactions against their willfor lack of other means of livelihood:

I have said that Mahometans of Niksic refuse tobetray any emotion. I was wrong. Even the sto-icism of the Moslem can break down at partingwith his arms. An ancient Turk who hadcovenanted with a friend of mine to sell his flint-lock for thirty florins–it had a date upon it ofthree centuries back, and is destined to adorn amuseum at Berlin–fairly burst into tears as heconcluded the bargain, exclaiming “My great-grandfather will rise from his grave to rebukeme!” [Evans 1878:196]

Building the Imperial MuseumIn the 19th century West, people were fasci-

nated by archaeology; however, it was understoodnot in historical terms but as an important meansof distinguishing between the people of the West andthe people of the East. When Western travelerstoured the vast Ottoman Empire looking for archae-ological sites, they imagined themselves seeming tothe locals “very foolish,” wasting their time looking“at such useless things.” Until the mid-19th century,reports of Eastern travels frequently included stories

about Orientals, Greeks, and Turks, who regardedtravelers as possessed of magic arts by the aid ofwhich they sought for hidden treasures among theruins of ancient cities (see Hughes 1820:233; Laurent1821:206–207;Wilson 1839:494–495; Hamilton 1842,vol. 1:390; Bowen 1852:181; von Hahn 1854, vol.1:164; Tozer 1869, vol. 1:203–204). Reportedly, thisopinion was so widespread among the people of theEast that some individuals, “as avaricious as igno-rant,” who dug up a marble statue in their gardens,refused any price for it. Wishing to obtain posses-sion of the fancied treasure, they chose rather topound the marble, destroying the statue (Hughes1820:232; Laurent 1821:206–207).2

The Reverend Samuel Wilson, a member of theLiterary Society of Athens, for instance, gave anaccount of an old man in Greece who asked himwhere Englishmen got their money, for they were soimmensely rich.At his reply that they worked hard,they were a learned people, and knowledge waspower, the old man shook his head most significantlyand answered back:

“All that may be very well, but I know how youget your wealth.” “How?”—“By magic.”—“Bymagic! How so?”—“I”ll tell thee,” said he with acunning air, and told me the following story.

“An English magician once came to Athens.Going to the disdar, he said; ‘there stands amongthe old ruins a broken column;–will you give mea leave to take it away? It is worth nothing.’ ‘Notfor the world,’ replied the disdar; ‘for if I did, myhead would not be worth a parà.’—‘Come now,’returned the English magician, ‘don’t make afuss about nothing; let me have it, and I will giveyou a hundred purse.’—‘Not for five hundred.’—‘Will you for a thousand?’ This was too strong abait, and the bargain was struck. The magiciannow stalked over the ruins, came up to the oldcolumn, pulled out a book of magic in English,read a moment in the book, and then steppingbehind the column, placed his hand upon a peg—for his magic taught all about it – when lo! Thewhole column opened, and inside, the magicianfound an immense treasure in gold, silver andprecious stones. All these he scraped together,and off he set for London. That’s the way you getyour wealth.” [Wilson 1839:494–495]

Until the First World War no country possesseda field for archaeological research so extensiveand rich as did the Ottoman Empire. It compriseda large part of ancient Greece, with Illyricum,


Macedonia and Thrace, the Sporades Islands, Crete,Asia Minor, western Armenia, the basins of theEuphrates and Tigris, and western Arabia. Theselands were the seat of the Hittite, Chaldean,Assyrian, and Babylonian empires, and of theHebrew and Syrian kingdoms; they were later dom-inated by the Greek and Roman governments andcivilizations, and were dotted everywhere by theremains of their glorious cities. At the close of the19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, manyagreed that if the Ottoman government undertookthis work of disinterring the treasures of antiquitymore systematically, its museums would soon rival,if not excel, the best in Europe. But this work wasleft to foreigners, the operations of the Ottoman gov-ernment having been chiefly limited to supervisingthe operations (Grosvenor 1895, vol. 2:772; Müller1897:133–136; Garnett 1911:257).

In the first half of the 19th century, only someOttoman officials undertook archaeological excava-tions themselves. Veli Pasha, the son of Ali Pasha ofIoanina and governor of Morea, ordered an excava-tion near the theatre of Argos and discovered 16marble statues and busts in good style and preser-vation, notably one of Venus and another ofAesculapius (Dodwell 1819, vol. 2:217; Hughes 1820:198–199; Laurent 1821:145, 167; Trant 1830:118;see also Stoneman 1987:190). On one occasion, VeliPasha paid a visit to Athens in order to see itsancient monuments. Veli Pasha’s visit surprised hisWestern contemporaries, “This would not have beensurprising in any European, but is by no meansusual with a Turk” (Gell 1823:364).

The idea of collecting antiquities, instead ofallowing them to be destroyed or carried off tomuseums abroad, seems to have come from the mar-shal of the imperial arsenal, Fethi Ahmet Pasha,who in the second half of the 1840s collected differ-ent relics of antiquity in the ancient Church of St.Irene and its courtyard (Hamdy and Reinach1892vii; Mendel 1912, vol. 1:x–xi). Despite the factthat the collection became a museum only in 1869,Théophile Gautier, who visited it in 1852, saw it “asa striking indication of ‘progress’” (1854:295).

In contrast to the Magazine of Antiquities, thenew museum actively sought new acquisitionsthrough the Ottoman administrative network. In1870, Minister of Public Education Safvet Pashainstructed local governors that they should acquire“any old works, otherwise known as antiquities, by

any means necessary, including direct purchase”(Shaw 2003:85–86). After the acquisition of antiqui-ties from Cyprus in 1873, the Church of St. Irene wasnot big enough to accommodate the whole collection.The collection was removed, in 1875, to the more spa-cious and artistic Çinili Köçk (‘Tiled Pavilion’), anedifice erected by Sultan Mehmet II in 1473, butby then repaired and remodeled so that it could“preserve and display the beautiful works thatEuropeans value highly” (see Shaw 2003:92, 96).Although designed to attract European visitors morethan Ottoman subjects, its Western visitors were dis-satisfied with the way it exhibited its collection tothe public. During his visit to the museum, AlfredColbeck, for instance, saw nothing but confusion:

Various sculptured marbles have also been col-lected in a museum, without any classification,or attempt to ascertain their comparative value.The severe iconoclasm of the believers in theKoran has thrown them confusedly together,and would probably treat an offer to sort themout, and arrange them, as a connivance of idol-atry. . . In the Treasury are stored an extensivecollection of antique objects, but here there isthe same lack of order as in the museum, andthe same indifference to comparative value,golden vessels of rare beauty, adorned withpriceless gems, in the midst of a mass of meretinsel worth nothing at all. [1887:152]

Safeguarding the ancient artifacts became theofficial policy of the Ottoman Empire in 1869. Asreported in The Times (of London) on December20,1869, in compliance with the new rules, the Porteused to refuse permission to foreigners “to make anyexcavations for the discovery of antiquities withinits territory, the plea being that it desires to reserveall such objects for the Imperial Museum atIstanbul” (Anonymous 1869). If they had rational-ized the acquisition of classical heritage as a pre-cautionary measure against “Turkish negligence,”the Ottomans justified the antiquities laws, passedin 1874, as precautionary measures againstEuropean pilfering (Shaw 2003:89). However, manyEuropeans were able to find ways to circumvent thenew rules.

“What a Vandal Turk Could Do”After the appointment of Osman Hamdi as its

director in 1881, the Ottoman museum of antiqui-ties in Istanbul, established as an ideological


s

bridge between European and Ottoman heritage,turned into a battleground for the possession ofmaterial elements of that heritage (Shaw 2003:108).Hamdi Bey (1842–1910), the son of Edhem Pasha,who had been grand vizier, was sent to study inParis.There, in addition to acquiring the knowledgeof Western jurisprudence, which was his primaryobject, he studied at the École des Beaux Arts.Desirous of giving his own country the benefit of theculture he had acquired during his residence inParis, his efforts upon his return to Istanbul weredirected toward the creation of an Ottoman nationalmuseum on the lines of the Paris Louvre. Anxiousto elevate it to the level of the great European muse-ums, Hamdi Bey had begun to petition the sultanfor state funding for Ottoman-run excavations,arguing that, “today most of the European sover-eigns, including our most gracious Kaiser and theruler of Austria-Hungary, patronize archaeologicalundertakings” (Marchand 1996:317).

Hamdi Bey, and the museum under his direc-tion, became famous when he unearthed sarcophagiin the vicinity of Saida, the Sidon of the ancients,once the principal city of Phoenicia. One MohammedSheriff Effendi had originally discovered these sar-cophagi while digging on a plot of his land at thebeginning of 1887. On March 2, 1887, in confor-mance with the law of antiquities, he reported hisfindings to the local authorities.The report attractedthe attention of the kaimakam of Saida, Sadik Bey,who went to the spot to see the well for himself.During his visit, he discovered an entrance to twomore caves with sarcophagi. He rushed to the valiof Syria, Nashid Pasha, and the mutesarif of Beirut,Nassushi Bey, with the information about theimmense richness of the findings, and confided theguard over the well to the local gendarmerie to pre-vent the removal of the ancient artifacts (Hamdyand Reinach 1892:i).3 As reported in The Times onMay 4, 1887, the Westerners were not allowed toenter the necropolis, while the local effendis went infreely, “and one has already mutilated a statue, andhas the arm in his dukkan (shop)!” (Wright 1887c).By and by, information like this gave rise to thealarming rumors about the wholesale destruction ofthe sarcophagi and sculptures (see Wright 1887c).

Upon the order of Nashid Pasha, all furtherworks were suspended until the arrival of the engineerof the vilayet, whom he appointed the supervisor ofthe works. On March 15, the engineer arrived at

Saida and, under his surveillance, seven more caveswere opened, each of them containing sarcophagi.On March 24, the engineer, Beshara Effendi sent areport about the ancient necropolis to Nashid Pasha,to be transmitted to the Ministry of PublicEducation in Istanbul. On April 18, 1887, HamdiBey sailed for Beirut to extract the sarcophagi andship them to the museum in Istanbul. The excava-tions were finished on June 20, when 21 sarcophagiof exquisite beauty were loaded onto the Ottomansteamer The Assir (Hamdy and Reinach 1892:iii, 2;Mendel 1912, vol. 1:19).

On April 29th he came. He called on Mr. Eddyand Dr. Ford and set about the removal of thosepriceless treasures of Greek and Phœniciansculpture. Dressed like a common navvy [sic] ina blouse and heavy shoes, he superintended thecutting of a tunnel from the orange gardens tothe floor of those subterranean rock-hewnrooms, built a tramway, rolled out the colossalsarcophagi to the gardens, and then built histramway down to the seashore where he con-structed a wharf on piles. He then brought asteamer from Constantinople, had a large open-ing made in its side, floated huge blocks, encasedin wrappings and boxed, to the side of thesteamer, drew them into the hold, and carriedthem away triumphant to Constantinople,where they remained in the museum, the admi-ration of the learned and unlearned touristsfrom all parts of the world. One of them is sup-posed to be the sarcophagus of Alexander theGreat. Mr. W. K. Eddy deserves the credit ofhaving first made them known, before the antiq-uity hunting vandals of Sidon had broken themto pieces.As it was, one of the exquisitely carvedstatuettes was broken in the fragments offeredfor sale, but it was finally secured by HamdiBeg. [Jessup 1910, vol. 2:507]

When the sarcophagi, compared then to theElgin Marbles by experts who valued artistic inter-est and worth (see Waldstein 1889), reachedIstanbul, Çinili Kös,k was found to be too small tohouse them. In 1892, a “new monument,” foreseenby Hamdi Bey to render the Imperial Museum inIstanbul as an “equal to the most illustrious museumsof Europe” (Hamdy and Reinach 1892:vii), was built,and opened to the public (Hamdy and Reinach1892:iii; Coufopoulos 1895:88–91).Those Westernerswho saw the new museum agreed that Istanbulgot with it “a new museum which every Turk maywell be proud of ” (Müller 1897:133). According to


Mrs. Max Müller [i.e., Georgina Müller], at the endof the 19th century, no collection of sarcophagi orfuneral monuments in the world could rival the col-lection in the new museum at Istanbul; there wasevery prospect that the collection would increasesubstantially, “and if these treasures once becomemore generally known they will prove a powerfulattraction to many intelligent travellers, just as theParthenon marbles draw people to the BritishMuseum, or as the Venus of Milo collects hundredsof worshippers around her in the Louvre of Paris”(Müller 1897:135).

The museum became, during the 19th century,one of the fundamental institutions of the modernstate (Bennett 1995:76–77), serving as an instru-ment whereby members of “civilized society” couldbe distinguished from “barbarians.”The 19th centuryinvented traditions were based on the kind of rep-resentation of the past that aspired to emphasizewhat made the West different from the rest.According to these representations, the Christianand scientific legacy of the “history-conscious” Westwas significantly superior to the “barbarous cus-toms” of the East. Thus, Hamdi Bey’s accomplish-ments could not be accepted by all Europeans assigns of a felicitous marriage of the Ottomans withWestern civilization. After he unearthed the mag-nificent sarcophagi, it was thought in the West thatthe Ottomans had no right to keep these treasuresof classical antiquity and considered it “very unfairthat he should not at once have made over his sar-cophagi to the care of one of the great Europeanmuseums” (Müller 1897:134).

Despite strict orders to the guards, theAmerican missionary Reverend W. H. Eddy wentinto the tombs hewn in the solid rock 30 feet belowthe surface to measure and describe all the sar-cophagi. On March 12, 1887, he wrote a letter to hisfather about the discovery that had the potential tobe of very great artistic and archaeological impor-tance. In it, he expressed his anxiety that “the treas-ure will probably be consigned to the archaeologicallimbo at Constantinople.” If the artifacts could notbe brought to London “for the use of the world,” hesuggested, “could they not be preserved in situ?”(Wright 1887a).

The ancient necropolis in the vicinity of Saidaalso attracted the attention of the French excava-tor Edmond Durighello. He sent a long report to theFrench Ministry of Public Education in which he

suggested that “these admirable monuments” shouldbe exported to the Louvre; however, his proposal wasnot approved (Durighello 1890, Number 2:1).

On April 7, 1887, Dr. William Wright, of theBritish and Foreign Bible Society, contributed anotherletter to the editor of The Times, claiming that:

It is now clear from the information to hand thatthe discovery at Sidon will prove of surpassinginterest. The Sidonian treasures, however, arein a fair way to be lost. Legally the Turks havea right to do what they please with the sculp-tures, but I think they might be induced to letthem remain where they are. The cost of guard-ing and preserving the tombs in situ might becovered by a small fee admission, and Sidonwould become a new centre of attraction.[Wright 1887b]

Wright received the letter through Dr. Henry Jessupwith a note in which he expressed the hope that theauthorities of the British Museum would “takeimmediate measures to secure these treasuresand prevent their falling into the hands of thevandal Turk.” In his memoirs of 53 years spent inSyria, Dr. Jessup alleged that it was the publica-tion of Reverend Eddy’s letter in The Times thatspurred Hamdi Bey to go to Saida. When the news-paper reached Istanbul, and Hamdi Bey happenedto see Rev. Eddy’s and Dr. Wright’s letters, he pur-portedly said, “I’ll show what the ‘Vandal Turk’ cando!” (Jessup 1910, vol. 2:506–507).

The Division Between Us and ThemThe many loopholes in the 1874 Law of Antiq-

uities and the absence of its enforcement made theOttoman Empire an exhaustless mine for Westernarchaeologists and excavators who exploited itsantique remains for the benefit of the museums ofEurope. Hamdi Bey, unhappy about the hugeamount of antiquities leaving the empire, had per-suaded the sultan to introduce the same strict lawon excavations that had already been instituted inGreece and other European countries by then,making that kind of traffic illegal. The revised Lawon Antiquities of 1884 declared that, “all types ofantiquities extant or found, or appearing in thecourse of excavation or appearing in lakes, rivers,streams, or creeks,” belonged to the state. No exca-vation could be undertaken without leave andsupervision and it was “absolutely forbidden” toexport antiquities found within the Ottoman


Empire without the express consent of the ImperialMuseum (Brown 1905:65, 223; Shaw 2003:110).TheOttoman authorities put an end to the use of antiq-uities as a bargaining chip with which to make dealsand placate European allies. Their symbolic value,as ties to a shared heritage and as markers of con-tinued sovereignty, began to take precedence overtheir value as gifts (Shaw 2003:124).

During the 19th century, it became widelyaccepted that each nation had the duty and right toconserve and maintain its own national heritage,and similar laws were adopted in all Western coun-tries. When Greece passed a similar law, theWesterners understood that with respect to themodern heir to ancient glory, “It cannot be expectedthat they should avoid being jealous of foreignerscarrying away these treasures, and adorning withthem the museums of foreign capitals” (Mahaffy1876:xv). However, as the love of Greece was con-strued as the love of the West that was “entirelyincompatible with the Orient” (see Gourgouris1996:139), it was taken for granted that theOttomans, “with their unsympathetic persuasions,were unsuitable inheritors of the works of theGreeks” (Constantine 1984:8–9).Therefore, when inthe Ottoman Empire a law was passed protectingarchaeological sites and monuments, it was thought“fair to decry it, nay, to defy it, in the interest ofarchaeological science, but too often from far lowermotives” (Müller 1897:134).

In the West, the records of ancient times wereconsidered a means for the improvement of taste andcultural identity,“a fruit-bearing wealth” if housed in(Western) museums (Greenwood 1888:357) whereancient relics were not simply put on display, butused to provide tangible “evidence” that legitimizedthe present, particularly the division between “Us”and “Them” (cf. Lowenthal 1996:239). Consequently,the measures taken by the Ottoman Empire to pro-tect its ancient heritage were unfavorably receivedin the West, where many art lovers considered “allow-able in carrying off, that is, stealing, whatever ancientworks of art can be recovered from Turkish soil,whether by fair means or by foul” (Müller 1897:134).As these measures, in the eyes of Westerners, blurredthe division between the West and the East, therewere grumblings that the Ottoman Empire shoulddare to call these treasures its own (Müller 1897:134).

While excavations by foreigners were still per-mitted and encouraged by the Ottoman government,

all objects unearthed were to be deposited in theImperial Museum at Istanbul, the excavator beingallowed only to make drawings or casts. The greatand increasing suspicion and distrust of foreignexcavators was largely justified by the persistentefforts many had made to evade and violate theagreements they themselves had signed, and byvirtue of which permission to excavate had beengranted. At the close of the 19th century, anAmerican explorer of Babylon, for instance, saidthat he would “believe no good of a Turk, and feelbound by no moral code in dealing with him”(Grosvenor 1895, vol. 2:776).

Even at the beginning of the 20th century,Western archaeologists found it difficult to compre-hend why they should take what they recoveredduring their excavations in the East to the museumin Istanbul instead of London, Paris, or Berlin. TheBritish archaeologist David Hogarth, for instance,regretted very much that he was allowed to take allthe objects from the first House of Artemis in theEphesian plain to England for a time to be catalogedand studied: “I wanted nothing less than to see themagain when I left Stambul, and nothing more thanto keep them for ever in London” (1910:153–154).

Although the 1884 law expressed a different,more Western attitude towards the ancient heritage,it continually proved too weak to implement.Excavators had to apply for permission, but themechanism designed to conserve antiquities for theImperial Museum was not often implemented andloads of artifacts continued to flow westward.Moreover, close personal ties between SultanAbdülhamid II and Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia andEmperor Franz Joseph I of Austria allowed for thecircumvention of the Antiquities Law at the whimof the sultan (Marchand 1996:102; Shaw 2003:117).

In November 1899, for instance, the Porte issueda Note verbale announcing that the sultan nowauthorized the Berlin royal museums to keep forthemselves half of the antiquities that they discov-ered in the course of authorized investigations; untilthe advent of the First World War, German museumbureaucrats, archaeologists, and diplomats wouldcontinue to invoke this secret accord (Marchand1996:311). In 1903, the Mschatta Gate, discoveredby German explorers, was presented as a personalgift of the sultan to the kaiser. The kaiser’s gift wasa team of black thoroughbreds to complement thewhite horses given by Franz Joseph I of Austria.


The horses arrived at Istanbul in November 1903;several weeks later, the Mschatta Gate arrived inBerlin,packed in 442 cases (Marchand 1996:315–316).Purportedly, the sultan himself suffered no pangs ofconscience; indeed, he was said to have boasted to aretainer of the painless diplomatic gains made bythe Mschatta gift, “Look at these stupid foreigners;I pacify them with broken stones” (Watzinger1944:170).

Regardless of all objections, the sultan contin-ued to use antiquities as items of barter.Thus, sevenconsignments with a selection of findings fromEphesus arrived in Vienna between 1896 and 1906(Wiplinger and Wlach 1996:175). Hamdi Bey wasso enraged with the sultan’s actions that he ten-dered his resignation. However, the sultan had morereservations about the director of the ImperialMuseum whom he suspected of sympathizing withthe Young Turks, than about European heads ofstates with whom he could barter seemingly uselessstones. Hamdi Bey’s resignation was refused, butthe museum director returned to his post consider-ably less enthusiastic about foreign excavators andincreasingly attuned to the dangers of an inonda-tion scientifique allemande (‘German scientificflood’) (Marchand 1996:316; Shaw 2003:119).

ConclusionDuring the Age of Enlightenment and after,

Western Europeans construed ancient Greece as aunique land, peopled not with humans, but super-humans. Occasionally, disputes erupted over whichwestern European nation had the strongest claimon Greece, but there were no doubts that collectivelythey monopolized its ancient heritage. During the19th century, classical glories bolstered Greek prideand unity, but classical antiquity had been definedin advance by west Europeans. As a result, modernGreeks were cast in the role of living ancestors forEuropean civilization, a notion reinforced by archae-ology (Morris 2000:37–38).When the Greeks passedthe antiquities laws and built museums for theirpreservation, they were imagined as true benefici-aries of their forefathers, albeit not yet fully ade-quate for maintaining their prestigious heritage.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries,Europe was seen as a foil to the Ottomans and asendowed with all conceivable positive attributes, theEast was judged on its similarity to, or differencefrom, the West. To be less like Europe was to be the

inferior Other, and to be more like Europe was toadvance (Kabbani 1986:6).Therefore, the Ottomanswere trying hard to be “modern” and prove them-selves as if to be of the (Western) world. They didthis by, among other things, developing their inter-est in antiquities and their preservation.They couldnot boast, like the Greeks, that their ancestors gaverise to European arts and civilization (see Beaujour1829, vol. 2:367–368), however, they were not judgedby the same standard as their neighbors.The stereo-typed “unchanging Turk” was emphasized aboveall others in Western narration. Their endeavorsto preserve the classical heritage in order to“Europeanize” themselves found little favor in theeyes of modern Westerners.

Notes

1. Michael Rowlands even went so far as to claim that, “Weare modern because we are historically conscious, and his-torically conscious because we are modern” (1994:135).

2. In Lady Hester Stanhope’s travel accounts, one comesacross a curious story of an expedition she led in 1816 atAscalon in Palestine in search of hidden gold among theruins of Astarte’s Temple. When they discovered not goldbut “a superb colossal statue without a head, whichbelonged to the heathens,” she, “knowing how much itwould be prized by English travellers,” ordered it “to bebroken into a thousand pieces” that “malicious people”might not say she came to look for statues for her coun-trymen and not for treasures for the Porte (Stanhope 1846,vol. 3:168).

3. Kaimakam here refers to a governor of a kaza, whichroughly corresponds to a city with its surrounding vil-lages. Vali, in turn, is a governor of a vilayet (a province).Mutesarif, finally, is the governor of a sanjak, which is asubdivision of a vilayet.

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Bozidar Jezernik is a professor in the Department ofEthnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Universityof Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of, among otherbooks, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze ofWestern Travellers (Saqi Books, 2004).

Abstract

During the late 18th century and after,Western Europeansconstrued ancient Greece as an exceptional land, peoplednot with humans, but with super-humans. As a result,modern Greeks were cast in the role of the living ancestorsof European civilization. When they passed the antiquitieslaws and built museums for their preservation, they wereimagined as true beneficiaries of their forefathers, eventhough not yet fully adequate for keeping their prestigiousheritage. However, when the Ottomans endeavored to“modernize” their country and developed their interest inpreserving antiquities, the “history-conscious”West judgedtheir efforts by much different standards.

[Keywords: museum history, Ottoman Empire, culturalproperty, historical consciousness, Orientalism]


jezernik_constructing identities on marbles and terracotta

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